My chosen exam question is High Street. So far in my sketch book I have drawn up a mind map with all my first thoughts and ideas to this question, I have also made a mood board including all secondary images collected off the internet that made me think of high street. I have decided to look at the shopping and fashion aspect of the high street. After researching my chosen designers I was really inspired by Eduardo Recifes work. It makes me think of an old aged/vintage sort of style which is something I am really interested in anyway. Here I have gathered some photographs which I found online that relate to the vintage style/theme I am hoping to relate my work to.

Image one

This image has been taken in very dark tones which straight away makes me think of the 40s/50s style. The models used for this image look very sophisticated. They have been dressed in clothing maybe to resemble a certain era. The lady is wearing a headband with feathers and diamonds which you don’t usually see around the high street nowadays. Her dress is fairly revelaing, I would say that it is very provocative and would really attract male attention. However, she still seems very elegant and lady like which I really like. The male in this image looks a bit of a cheeky chap. He has sneaky expression on his face. He to is dressed very posh with his suit and top hat. The image has clearly been editied, you can see how it looks as if a sepia tone has been applied to the image which gives a very vintage effect to it.

Image two

This second image has taken a different approach. You can see in this one how the colour has been kept very pale and light which gives off quite a cute and pretty feminine vibe whereas in the first image it was very dark and quite musky which made the whole atmosphere of the image quite mysterious and creepy. I like the location where this image has been taken, she seems to be in a field covered in flowers leaning against this very old fashioned car. The clothing the women is wearing in this image is something else which is completely different to the first image. She seems to be more covered up with a skirt that ends just above her knees which is a huge difference with what the women in this first image is wearing.

Image three

This is a photograph taken for Vogue In Paris. The location where this has been taken again is probably what drew me to this image. The eiffel tower can just be seen making it’s way though the musky air, and this black sillhouette seems to be walking towards her in the background. The photo has been taken in black and white which really does show the elegance and femininity of the woman. I like how everything around her is fairly plain and simple then she is just centered in the middle of the image with this amazing outfit and hat on whcih is what really attracts you to the image, you can’t take your eyes of her. Even the shape of her body and the way her head is slightly looking down, everything about it just suggest mystery and curiousity.

The question I have chosen to carry out for my exam is High Street. As soon as I say high street I automatically think of shopping and fashion. My initial ideas for this are to advertise and promote a new clothing store opening. I am going to be looking at shop fronts, posters advertising different brands/stores, typography, photography, and many graphic designers that I feel will help me throughout the project.

This is my finished final Awareness magazine cover. As you can see it has developed a lot from the mock up I have done below. I took into consideration what my fellow students said I could do to it to improve my design and I think the final outcome has worked very well.

I feel that the comments left under my inital design for my magazine are very useful. I am now going to use these commenst from people to find ways in which I can develop my design and improve it even further.

To start off with I am going to find a suitable image in which I can use as a background for my magazine. It looks rather plain and after studying it several times I feel that this would really improve my design and make it look more realistic.

I am definitly going to add more cover stories to my magazine. I think this will help people gain further informtion upon what my issue is about.

I think I am going to look for a more suitable font for my typography, one of the comments made said to try and make it bolder therefore making it stand out more. I am going to try adding an outter glow and decrease it quite a lot so it is fairly faint around the typo, this way I think it will stand out a lot more.

I hope to achieve all the comments made above and make a change to my magazine cover to improve it.

This is a quick mock up design for my magazine cover, I was really experimenting with the layout and where I wanted things to go, obviously I haven’t really looked at backgrounds or the articles I want to feature in my magazine yet. Any comments would be appreciated.

I think the feedback given to me form my fellow students has proved very helpful, I will consider what they have said when I carry on developing my design.

Here I experimented with typography. I wanted to practise with different effects to see what I could create to use on my final front cover. It also gave me a chance to increase my skills on Photoshop which I could also use in making up my final cover. I used a big P for pollution at first which I then used to work around. I layered it onto the image then adjusted it’s opacity so it could be seen through the image. I used the word pollution and awareness to experiment with.

Down the side I used the word aware. To create the effect you can see I wrote my text out as normal and used a blend tool on Photoshop to stretch and blur the text. This was the effect I wanted to try and create. I thought it would look like like a deep dark shadow in the water, maybe even thick stodgy oil.

I also had a go at duplicating a word and experimenting with the opacity of it and far away it was from the original. I looked at inner and out glows which would also work as a good effect for this type of magazine.

As I have done in my sketch book here I gathered some images online which I am going to analyse in the same way closely looking at Typography, the main image, target audience and composition.

Magazine one- Vogue

Target audience

As you can clearly see from this magazine cover Vogue is targeted at women for a love of fashion. I would say that it is aimed at women from a very young age of around 18 and onwards as girls nowadays seem very interested at a young age. Although as you can see from the main image it does look very sophisticated which is also the type of woman that would read it, they want to know all about what is happening in the world of fashion and would be very fashion conscious. I t also tells us a way of life and perhaps a different way of living.

Main image

The model used on the front of this cover is very sophisticated looking. She is standing very tall and up right which suggests that she is happy with her self and showing off a sense of confidence. What she is wearing really does reflects the genre of magazine being all about new fashion. She is very done up and you can clearly tell that she is interested in fashion. The colour off her hair and outfit she is wearing also reflect the Autumn style of this particular issue. You can see how her head is covering the G of Vogue this gives off really good effect as it is such a well known magazine it doesn’t even need to be there.

Typography

I really like the typography used for this cover, the red and white colours used don’t look too much but they do stand out against the image which really works. You can see how Glorious has bee used in a different font compared to all the other typo on the magazine. I think it looks very girly and twirly which works really well and again reflects the target audience of the magazine.

Composition

Im really impressed with the overall layout of this magazine front cover, there is a split focus between the main image and typography which is what you want from a magazine. I really like how the models hair is covering most of the cover and the headlines of the stories are just placed over the top.

Magazine two- Q

Target audience

Q magazine is an alternative music magazine. I would say that the target audience for this magazine is mainly aimed at the older generation around there 30’s/40’s who are looking for a variety of different music.

Main Image

As the magazine is based around music they have used an image of Lady Gaga, who is very famous world wide at the moment. This is a good reason to use a photograph of her as the main image. It would make people want to pick up the magazine to read more about her. You can see underneath this image it says “Lady Gaga has risen” so they would be right to use such a revealing photograph of her as this does make it more noticeable therefore getting her even more recognised.

Typography

I really like on this magazine cover how the typo has been done in different fonts, styles and colours. We can see how bits are bolder and different sizes which gives it a bit of variation just like the context of the magazine.

Composition

The composition of this magazine cover works really well, I think everything has been positioned in the right places. I like how the main image has been placed behind and in front of the typo which makes it look slightly different compared to other magazine covers. I also really like how boxes have been made around some bits of the text which breaks it up slightly.

Target audience

The target audience of this magazine judging by the front cover of this would be women with an interest in decorating there country home. I would say from the age of about 30 and onwards when they are perhaps settled in with a family.

Main image

The main image used for this magazine takes up most of the cover. As the magazine is based around modern country lifestyle decorating the image really does reflect this. I think it works really well as you would want to see an example of how they have decorated to see if you like the style. The colour used for this cover is all very girly with pinks, reds and a lot of pattern, which also reflects the target audience.

Typography

The typo used on this cover is very simple compared to the others I have looked at. It seems to just be down one side of the cover putting more focus on the main image. I like the way it has all been crammed together so you don’t have a break between words you just read down, so you take it all in at once. Joyful has been made to look larger which emphasises on the positivity. Again the colours are all very feminine.

Composition

As mentioned above the layout of this magazine is very simple compared with the others I have analysed. I really like how this has been done. This is the type of magazine where people would rather look at the photographs to see what the entire magazine has to offer and give them inspiration when decorating there house.